Contact Sheet

The first row of the contact sheet focuses on resolution. This was a pretty easy row to create since the image was already given to us and was of high resolution. To change the image resolution I simply had to click on image size and enter the resolution needed. The challenging part of this was to insert the image into the contact sheet so that they were above the words and the correct size. It was really sensitive to where I placed the image.
The next row was about format and mode which dealt with color. I had first selected an image that really did not show the difference between CMYK and RGB as I would have liked. I went back and selected a better image where it was easier to tell the difference. The next challenge that I ran into was that the black and white image would not insert into the contact sheet. To fix this I had to save the image differently and try again.
For the row about orientation I chose an image of a waterfall. Unfortunately, the resolution was low and very hard to see especially when I began to crop the image. I went into image size and changed the resolution from 72 to 300. When I first learned how to crop it took a couple of tries and playing with the crop tool to realize where the cropping would end up. Once I became used to the tool I was able to easily isolate the waterfall and crop the image.
Creating the framing images was very entertaining. I was surprised by how much detail came out of the image by creating a more close up view. This row of images went very smoothly and I found no problems along the way. I did spend time working out the size and placement of the cropping that I did.
The row that I had the most fun doing was the row about content. I found this great image of a snake that was in a very high resolution. When I cropped in to focus on the scales the image was still incredibly interesting and clear. I tried to gradually zoom in on the exact same spot on the snack each time to see a progression of where the image came from.
The last row about purpose was very insightful because I was able to experiment with the different and unique brush strokes and artistic applications. The image of Carrie Underwood was a little hard to work with because some of the different types would distort the image so completely that you couldn't tell what the image was. I chose to put Sumi-e crosshatch because I liked the dramatic blurred edges.

The lyrics that I chose were from the Rascal Flatt's song "Life is a Highway". I chose these three lines that I thought were meaningful because they show life's instability. I like the lyrics because to me it shows different choices to be made. These lyrics also had words that I thought I would be able to illustrate more easily than others.
I chose to leave the less important words in white and in the same font to make them look similar. I chose to make the word "YOU" in all capitals and in a young looking font so that it stands out. I made the word "gone" begin larger and decrease in size to give the illusion that is was disappearing. The color also becomes lighter to emphasize the word. "Wind" was in Vladimir script to create the illusion of light and airy look.
To arrange the words I considered each word individually. I had to find a way to cover the whole page. Because I only changed the font and size of some of the words I had to space them so that they weren't all at one point on the page. I decided to place words that I thought were less significant closer together. The significant words are isolated to draw more attention to them.
The first problem that I encountered was that I used another computer to work on the project. When I opened the project again all the layers had disappeared. I think that I accidentally saved my draft as a jpg. I learned from my mistake and from then on I made sure that I saved my document as a photoshop document. I also was having difficulty in using the full page. My earlier drafts are organized straight across the page. I fixed the problem by spending more time moving around each word focusing on separating and off centering the words. I also increased the font size on every word so that it would take up more space on the page.
If I had more time I would work on the color aspect of the design. I used blue and different shades of blue to add meaning to the words but I would have liked to add different colors. I chose to use blue because it represented wind, and I was able to use different hues to add meaning to the other words.